Then he rushed headlong down the stairs, thumping his wounded fist at intervals against the wall, where it left bloody smudges. He hit the front door with his shoulder, rebounded, jerked it open, and went out like a locomotive.
I stood frozen on the landing in the midst of chaos and destruction, gripping the edge of the broken balustrade. Tiny rainbows danced on walls and ceiling like multicolored dragonflies sprung out of the shattered crystal that littered the floor.
Something moved; a shadow fell across the floor of the hall below. A small, dark figure walked slowly in through the open doorway. Putting back the hood of her cloak, Jenny Fraser Murray looked round at the devastation, then up at me, her face a pale oval glimmering with humor.
“Like father, like son, I see,” she remarked. “God help us all.”
THE HOUR OF THE WOLF
THE BRITISH ARMY was leaving Philadelphia. The Delaware was choked with ships, and the ferries ran nonstop from the end of State Street across to Cooper’s Point. Three thousand Tories were leaving the city, too, afraid to stay without the army’s protection; General Clinton had promised them passage, though their baggage made a dreadful mess—stacked on the docks, crammed into the ferries—and occupied a good deal of space on board the ships. Ian and Rachel sat on the riverbank below Philadelphia, under the shade of a drooping sycamore, and watched an artillery emplacement being disassembled, a hundred yards away.
The artillerymen worked in shirtsleeves, their blue coats folded on the grass nearby, removing the guns that had defended the city, preparing them for shipping. They were in no hurry and took no particular notice of spectators; it didn’t matter now.
“Does thee know where they are going?” Rachel asked.
“Aye, I do. Fergus says they’re going north, to reinforce New York.”
“Thee has seen him?” She turned her head, interested, and the leaf shadows flickered over her face.
“Aye, he came home last night; he’ll be safe now, wi’ the Tories and the army gone.”
“Safe,” she said, with a skeptical intonation. “As safe as anyone may be, in times like these, thee means.” She’d taken off her cap because of the heat and brushed the damp, dark hair back from her cheeks.
He smiled, but said nothing. She knew as well as he did what the illusions of safety were.
“Fergus says the British mean to cut the colonies in half,” he remarked. “Separate north from south and deal with them separately.”
“Does he? And how does he know this?” she asked, surprised.
“A British officer named Randall-Isaacs; he talks to Fergus.”
“He is a spy, thee means? For which side?” Her lips compressed a little. He wasn’t sure where spying fell, in terms of Quaker philosophy, but didn’t care to ask just now. It was a tender subject, Quaker philosophy.
“I shouldna like to have to guess,” he said. “He passes himself off as an American agent, but that may be all moonshine. Ye canna trust anyone in wartime, aye?”
She turned round to look at him at that, hands behind her back as she leaned against the sycamore.
“Can thee not?”
“I trust you,” he said. “And your brother.”
“And thy dog,” she said, with a glance at Rollo, writhing on the ground to scratch his back. “Thy aunt and uncle, too, and Fergus and his wife? That seems a fair number of friends.” She leaned toward him, squinting in concern. “Does thy arm pain thee?”
“Och, it’s well enough.” He shrugged with his good shoulder, smiling. His arm did hurt, but the sling helped. The ax blow had nearly severed his left arm, cutting through the flesh and breaking the bone. His aunt said he had been lucky, in that it had not damaged the tendons. The body is plastic, she said. Muscle would heal, and so would bone.
Rollo’s had; there was no trace of stiffness from the gunshot wound, and while his muzzle was growing white, he slid through the bushes like an eel, sniffing industriously.
Rachel sighed and gave him a direct look under dark, level brows.
“Ian, thee is thinking something painful, and I would much prefer thee tells me what it is. Has something happened?”
A great many things had happened, were happening all around them, would continue to happen. How could he tell her … ? And yet he couldn’t not.
“The world is turning upside down,” he blurted. “And you are the only constant thing. The only thing I—that binds me to the earth.”
Her eyes softened.
“Am I?”
“Ye ken verra well that you are,” he said gruffly. He looked away, his heart pounding. Too late, he thought, with a mixture of dismay and elation. He’d begun to speak; he couldn’t stop now, no matter what might come of it.
“I know what I am,” he said, awkward but determined. “I would turn Quaker for your sake, Rachel, but I ken I’m not one in my heart; I think I never could be. And I think ye wouldna want me to say words I dinna mean or pretend to be something I canna be.”
“No,” she said softly. “I would not want that.”
He opened his mouth but couldn’t find more words to say. He swallowed, dry-mouthed, waiting. She swallowed, too; he saw the slight movement of her throat, soft and brown; the sun had begun to touch her again, the nut-brown maiden ripening from winter’s pale bloom.
The artillerymen loaded the last of the cannon into a wagon, hitched their limbers to teams of oxen, and with laughter and raucous talk moved up the road toward the ferry point. When they were gone at last, a silence fell. There were still noises—the sound of the river, the rustle of the sycamore, and far beyond, the bellowings and crashings of an army on the move, the sound of violence impending. But between them, there was silence.
I’ve lost, he thought, but her head was still bent in thought. Is she maybe praying? Or only trying to think how to send me away?
Whichever it was, she lifted her head and stood up, away from the tree. She pointed at Rollo, who was lying couchant now, motionless but alert, yellow eyes following every movement of a fat robin foraging in the grass.
“That dog is a wolf, is he not?”
“Aye, well, mostly.”
A small flash of hazel told him not to quibble.
“And yet he is thy boon companion, a creature of rare courage and affection, and altogether a worthy being?”
“Oh, aye,” he said with more confidence. “He is.”
She gave him an even look.
“Thee is a wolf, too, and I know it. But thee is my wolf, and best thee know that.”
He’d started to burn when she spoke, an ignition swift and fierce as the lighting of one of his cousin’s matches. He put out his hand, palm forward, to her, still cautious lest she, too, burst into flame.
“What I said to ye, before … that I kent ye loved me—”
She stepped forward and pressed her palm to his, her small, cool fingers linking tight.
“What I say to thee now is that I do love thee. And if thee hunts at night, thee will come home.”
Under the sycamore, the dog yawned and laid his muzzle on his paws.
“And sleep at thy feet,” Ian whispered, and gathered her in with his one good arm, both of them blazing bright as day.